INAP 3.0 Progress
Aside from a brief flirtation with a couple payed projects, I’ve been heavily focusing on rewriting the code for INAP 3.0, and it has almost reached the point of a private beta (which means I start running it on this site.) I have selected the new name for INAP 3.0, but I’m not going to reveal it just yet. Here is a small preview of what you can expect from INAP 3.0:
INAP 3.0 is now truly modular with a main Javascript/PHP core that other features hook into to function. This core is easily extensible and the new structure of a main project with many smaller projects will make bugfixes and upgrades less painful, and will allow the user to upgrade the plugin section by section as most changes in the modules won’t effect the core.
For the users:
- INAP 3.0 will make upgrades far less painful.
As mentioned previously I have been trying to move INAP away from a simply function based system to a class based system. The PHP was unbelievably easy to convert. It literally took a couple hours to convert the entire program from prefixed functions to nice, neat and easy-to-read classes. It was rolled out with a few bugfixes and very little stress.
Then I started to do the same to Javascript, so the plugin could clarify its variables and functions and still “play nice,” and I swear the all the Javascript was specifically coded to make it difficult. Getting all the variables alone to be readable where and when they needed to be was bad by itself, throw on top of it some of the bad coding style that has just perpetuated itself over the past year in the scripts and the fact that Javascript doesn’t have real classes.
If you use INAP and have noticed oddness with your full-text feeds lately, it may have been caused by INAP. Users that had the “custom options” selected would have their feeds trimmed as if it were a post. INAP 2.4.3 fixes this.
In other news, INAP is in the process of a major overhaul including a complete rewrite of most of its antiquated structure. When this process is complete it will be rebranded to demonstrate the totality of its features (it won’t be called INAP anymore because the name is too restrictive), but will be released as version 3.0
Inline Ajax Page was listed on Mashable as one of “30 good [AJAX wordpress plugins].” While I’m thankful for the publicity (it seems half the internet is scraping Mashable’s feed which resulted in a huge Technorati boost), as always, it was described as “Allow[ing] readers to see a snippet of a post, click a button and the remainder will appear without going to another page.”
I almost cried. That description fits only the 1.0 version of INAP that was released over a year ago–now it does so much more than that that it is almost like saying Google is just a search engine. Oh well, the traffic generated was good quality.
In other news, version 2.4.25 was released a couple days ago to fix a bug that occurs when submitting a comment using the jQuery library under IE6.
On this lovely Friday the 13th, Inline Ajax Page version 2.4 has finally been released.
If you are upgrading or have ever installed INAP before follow the upgrade instructions here.
Please report bugs as soon as you find them, as I will be making bug-fixing releases as they are fixed.
I am also specifically asking for feature ideas for the next version, so drop a note on the main page if you have any.
INAP will be officially updated by the end of the week. I am currently running final tests on this version. Most known bugs have been fixed, the Admin panel has been re-written to be easier and less confusing, and many features critical to the success of this plugin have been added. (A omplete list can be found on the INAP page.)
If you would like to help me test or would like a sneak peak, the current developmental release is available here please read the INAP readme for installation instructions.
Please report any bugs found to this post or the main INAP thread, and ensure you mention that you are using the developmental release.
